An American Grimoire

THE RUSTBELT PRE-ORDERS

I’m taking pre-orders for the first edition of The Rustbelt. It’s finally coming out!

Here’s the back cover text:

Life here is nasty, brutish, and short. The Rust slowly eats everything away. It wears a man down. Corrodes him. Changes him. Makes him do things he wouldn’t think himself capable of. If you had to, wouldn’t you?become?

It’s a hard world, and you gotta pay for what you want. Sometimes the price is so hideous it makes you think twice, but it might be your only chance. The Rust whispers in your ear, “C’mon, do the math.”

So, how much are you willing to pay? What are you willing to do? What are you willing to

You gotta go a long way in the ‘Belt to find a good man.

THE RUSTBELT is a post-apocalyptic roleplaying game featuring:
– The Blood, Sweat, & Tears Engine: a flexible and easy-to-use resolution system in which your resolve matters more than your abilities.
– The Psyche System: personality mechanics that keep the characters psychologically and emotionally realistic and compelling – no matter how inhuman they turn out to be – without taking away the player’s control.
– Player-authored stories: your characters will be pushed against the wall until they’ve revealed all their most monstrous and most admirable qualities, but the decisions are always yours to make, and the prices yours to pay. The end result is a gritty, desperate tale in the vein of The Stand, The Road, or Mad Max.
– Customization support: full guidelines for adapting the game to other settings, as well as three examples to get you started.

“THE RUSTBELT is lean and mean. The laissez-faire, non-balanced character creation is excellent and totally appropriate; with the right Psyche traits, a one-legged stable boy could be the most dangerous guy in town. Fights are desperate, horrible affairs. I look forward to playing again.”
– Ron Edwards, designer of Sorcerer, Spione, and S/Lay w/Me

“The Psyche System is the most elegant model for human behavior I’ve ever seen in an RPG. And I have a master’s degree in psych.”
– Jonathan Davis

“Psyche did a really good job of fleshing out all the characters even during chargen. One character started off as ‘the Hulk as a mercenary in a Western’ and turned into an immigrant who tries to buy acceptance, without sacrificing any of the player’s original concept.”
– Josh W